Congressional aide to U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) commits a felony crime

Todd Shriber, 28-year-old communications director for Representative Denny Rehberg (R-MT), has been exposed to have solicited two computer hackers to commit felony crimes.

It appears Mr. Shriber felt his college grades weren’t good enough and engaged two well known operators of the website attrition.org in an email conversation about hacking into the computer system of Mr. Shriber’s College to alter his grades. The school he went to: Texas Christian University. Thou shalt not steal, Mr. Shriber?

What Mr. Shriber didn’t know is that attrition.org operators are white-hat hackers and had no intention of going through with the plan. Instead they strung him along and finally posted the entire Email conversation on their website. A reporter investigating the story then found out Mr. Shriber’s true identity.

Mr. Shriber was fired from his congressional aide position.

There is no word, as of yet, on any possible arrest warrant issued for him. Soliciting someone to commit a felony crime is a crime in itself. Federal guidelines state soliciting felony crimes should be punishable by half the sentence of the crime being solicited.

The email conversation is posted on attrition.org website.

More links to the press coverage on the story:
Talking Points Memo

-TPP

New York City 2030

New York City Mayor Bloomberg has revealed his long term development plan for New York City.

It’s a great read of the problems New York City will face during the next 25 years, and how the city is preparing to tackle them.

One can only wish Bloomberg’s successor(s) will also be looking into the future beoynd their term limits.

-TPP

1-800-454-9078

Update: Looks like it really was Chase who called me. Damn phishers making everyone paranoid.

Today I’ve received two calls on my cellphone supposedly from 1-800-454-9078.

The automated call claims to be from Fraud Center at Chase and is asking me to verify information regarding my Chase PriorityClub credit card. The caller has my cellphone number and the last four digits of my credit card. I can only imagine what the caller wants to do with the data.

I use this credit card very seldom. In fact, I haven’t used it for months before yesterday. Someone, somewhere swiped my credit card information yesterday. Very interesting. I used the credit card on two online stores yesterday. Both supposedly VERY reputable. Either they, their credit card processing company of my PC have been hacked.

I don’t think it’s my PC, because I make purchases from it using other credit cards all the time, and I haven’t received similar phonecalls about my other credit cards before.

Let’s see what kind of payments will start appearing on my credit card this week.

-TPP

Russia controlled by nationalist zealots

Andrei Nekrasov, a Russian film maker and an outspoken critic of the Putin dictatorship, has sent an open letter to Helsingin Sanomat, the leading newspaper in Finland.

The letter was sent from the deathbed of the former KGB spy, Alexander Litvinenko, who died this Saturday after being poisoned with radioactive poison earlier in the month. Mr. Litvinenko was a friend of Mr. Nekrasov’s. Before he died Mr. Litvinenko claimed he was poisoned by orders of Vladimir Putin.

The letter by Mr. Nekrasov is one of the most direct and outspoken criticism directed towards the power elite of Moscow. It’s a must read for anyone interested in the decline of democracy in Russia. Mr. Nekrasov is saying Russian democracy has regressed back to Stalin’s ideas for democracy.

Mr. Nekrasov is a brave man. Critics of Putin and his cronies have had a habit of dieing lately. And yet the European Union, under the leadership of Finland, is still talking with Russia about a new partnership agreement between EU and Russia. Politics as usual, I suppose. Money trumps little problems like murdering dissidents.

-TPP

The coolest thing ever

A friend of mine posted about a live video feed of a African watering hole on the Internet a day or two ago. I’ve been mesmerized since (yes, I’m a geek).

Africam has set up the first live video feed, with audio, filming a watering hole in South Africa. The video stream is active 24/7 and its video and audio quality is excellent. The video feed is coming from Nkorho Pan, which is a natural water hole in the prestigious Sabi Sands Private Game Reserve, in South Africa. Nkorho pan is named after Nkorho bush Lodge which gets it name from the Shangaan derivative for the call of the yellow-billed hornbill, a common and unusual looking bird from this area.

The camera is apparently operated by someone pretty much around the clock as it pans and zooms around following the wildlife around the watering hole. The audio really makes you feel like you’re almost there. The cricket noise at night is ear piercing and the bird noises and a pack of hyenas laughing is really cool.

At the time of writing this post, I’m watching about 10 zebras, a dozen giraffes and maybe 20 antilopes having breakfast together in the grasslands surrounding the watering hole.

It may not be edited as nicely as Animal Planet documentaries, but it’s LIVE. Everything you see on your screen is happening right at the same time half way across the world. It’s truly amazing. I’m not someone easily impressed by technology, but this thing is just great.

-TPP

Up yours, spammer scum

Christopher “Rizzler” Smith has been found guilty of conspiracy and illegal distribution of prescription medications.

I believe he still has to stand trial for trying to arrange threatening and/or killing witnesses in this trial. Nobody ever said spammers are smart.

May you rot in jail forever, Rizzler!

-TPP

Online gaming to be the first casualty if net neutrality is scrapped

RampRate.com has published an excellent paper on the likely impact of lack of net neutrality on online gaming.

The paper argues online gaming will be killed, if net neutrality is not enforced. The argument made in the paper says unlike for practically all other low latency services over the Internet, online gaming has no other alternatives, so it will be effectively killed, if ISPs start charging premium fees for online gaming packets.

-TPP

Screw the Customer – Reality Life Show – The Video Game Episode


This week is big in the video gaming industry. There are two new video game consoles coming out in the US this week. The Sony PlayStation3 (PS3) is getting released this Friday, and the Nintendo Wii this Sunday. The demand is expected to be high, and the supply, especially for the PS3, is expected to be low.

Nobody really was surprised to see scalpers (*spit*) crawling out of everywhere and reselling PS3 and Wii pre-orders on eBay for more than 100% profit. What people didn’t really expect is to see mostly reputable retailers getting in on the act and royally screwing up their customers.

Let’s start with our first contestant: CompUSA

CompUSA has decided it doesn’t want to just sell the PS3 (at $600 + games and accessories) to customers. No, no, $600 is way to little money to spend on a gaming system. Instead they’re bundling their PS3 with a 40″ Sony HDTV. If you don’t order the 40″ TV, which has a 15% restocking fee in case you decide to return it, you can not buy a PS3 from CompUSA. How brilliant is that?

Our second contestant is Fry’s Electronics.

Fry’s wants you to REALLY enjoy the PS3, so they have you buy 8 games for your PS3 (see upper right corner of the ad). What makes this forced bundling really interesting is that there are only 13 games available for the PS3 at launch. Furthermore BestBuy got into a LOT of trouble with forcing bundles on their customers when the XBox 360 was launched. You’d think retailers would’ve learned from their mistakes. I guess not.

Our third contestant is NovaDataCom, a “network technology warehouse” (aka technology product distributor).

NovaDataCom is holding a PS3 launch party at a dance club called Ultra Bar in Washington DC this Thursday night. Each party goer has the privilege of buying one of the 1,000 PS3s available through NovaDataCom for the low, low price of $1,200 (MSRP is $600). Way to go NovaDataCom!

Our fourth contestant is GameStop / EB Games.

Their chances of winning the contest are somewhat difficult as they got some help from Sony on this one. Just like with the pre-orders for the XBox 360, GameStop recently announced that a lot of people who pre-ordered a PS3 from them are not getting one on the first day as promised. It turns out Sony cut the shipment quantities quite dramatically earlier this week. Still, you can’t help but wonder what exactly did GameStop learn from their mistakes during the XBox 360 launch. I have friends who waited for four months for their pre-ordered XBox 360 from EB Games.

Our fifth, and final, contestant is Toys’R’Us.

Toys’R’Us was wooing potential Nintendo Wii buyers with some attractive offers for free games and other goodies. Well, they changed their minds. No more free games for you, our valued customer. Go Toys’R’Us!

Who will the winner be? Will we get new contestants? Who knows, but we do know, the customer always gets screwed.

[Update 1, 11/15/2006 4:22pm]

We have a new contestant! I’m so excited!

Our sixth contestant is an enterprising scalper scum from Inwood/Washington Heights in NYC.

He’s selling his spot on the PS3 purchase line for a mere $2,000. He’s not selling a PS3 that he owns, or a pre-ordered PS3…he’s selling his spot on the line to buy a PS3. For $2,000. You still gotta pay the $600 to actually buy the PS3. The thing is…he’s 30th in line at this retailer. Very few retailers are getting that many units to sell on Thursday. There is absolutely no way in hell whoever buys his spot is getting a PS3 at this location. Consider this Craigslist ad gone as soon as the content cops at Craigslist get to it.

[Update 2, 11/15/2006 4:34pm]

That was quick. The Craigslist ad is now gone.

[Update 3, 11/19/2006 9:35pm]

Another new contestant, FYE.

FYE is running a classic bait-and-switch scam on Nintendo Wii pre-orders. When people who ordered a Nintendo Wii try and pick up their system, the retailer is forcing them to buy accesories and games with the system bringing the total price of the package from $250 to about $400. No mention of the bundling was made at the time of the pre-order. Scamalicious!

-TPP

Kontrol Freek – reprieve for gamers’ thumbs

If you play a lot of video games, you’re undoubtedly familiar with what the controllers do to your thumbs. Marathon sessions in games that require a lot of lateral movement (e.g. racing games and tennis games) will completely destroy your thumbs. Your thumbs will literally hurt after a few hours, and they will continue hurting well into the next day. It’s very uncomfortable.

A friend of mine has a great little product that almost completely eliminates the soreness. It’s a little U-shaped add-on that attaches itself on top of the thumbstick. It’ll allow you to control the thumbsticks with less pressure and force. It works with the “S” controller for the XBox and the XBox 360 controllers.

I beta tested the product for my friend and found it doing exactly what it was designed to do.

His company is called Kontrol Freek and the product is called U-150. Go take a look and pre-order one, if you like what you see.

You can also read a review on IGN.com.

-TPP